CLIMATE CHANGE BARRIERS IN THE MIND

Climate Policies Must Overcome Psychological Barriers – Report
August 7, 2009 (Sustainable Business/Matter Network via Reuters)

SUMMARY
Psychology and Global Climate Change: Addressing a Multi-faceted Phenomenon and Set of Challenges; A Report by the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on the Interface Between Psychology and Global Climate Change offers some insight into the conundrum of how so much of the public can ignore what a small but significant and growing part of the public regards as the most urgent matter there is.

Climate change is in its essence biophysical and geophysical change over time, nothing atypical on this good earth. There is a crucial difference to the current situation, though, because there is a rapid set of changes caused by human activity that could potentially alter indelibly the earth’s habitability for humans.

Yet humans are generally failing to appreciate the significance or urgency of their activities and failing to alter them. The reason for these behaviors, it turns out, is - it depends.

The American Psychological Association (APA) report describes the research findings relevant to better understanding of the pyschological response to global climate change, offers recommendations for further research and suggests policies for psychologists to further engagement with the issue.

The report asked 6 questions:
In section 1: How do people understand the risks imposed by climate change?
In section 2: What are the human behavioral contributions to climate change and the psychological and contextual drivers of these contributions?
In section 3: What are the psychosocial impacts of climate change?
In section 4: How do people adapt to and cope with the perceived threat and unfolding impacts of climate change?
In section 5: Which psychological barriers limit climate change action?
In section 6: How can psychologists assist in limiting climate change?

click to enlarge

In answer to question 1:
(1) Climate change occurs over a long time period and is difficult to observe but “invites” personal observation and opinion.
(2) Extreme weather events are “small probability events” and their significance is therefore underestimated unless they recently occurred and then they are overestimated.
(3) People think of the risk of climate change as far off in time and place.
(4) Emotional reactions tend to be conflicted and muted.
(5) Reactions are muted because climate change is seen as a natural process and/or beyond control of private or group action and/or beyond control of science and technology. Reactions are much mediated by cultural values and beliefs.

In answer to question 2:
(1) Population growth and “region-specific” consumption drive climate change. Psychologists can offer insight into such forces.
(2) Psychologists can offer insight into consumption behaviors.
(3) Consumption predictors (individuals): (a) ability (leading, for example, to income and skills) and (b) motivation (leading, for example, to attitudes about nature, the need for luxuries, and psychological needs).
(4) Consumption predictors (context): (a) opportunities and constraints (infrastructure, location) and (b) motivations driven by context (social and cultural norms, consumerist orientation to time and nature).

In answer to question 3:
(1) Psychosocial effects of climate change are cumulative and interacting.
(2) Psychosocial effects of heat and extreme weather are increased competition for scarce resources and are worsened by preexisting inequalities leading to and worsened by disproportionate impacts on groups and nations.
(3) Psychosocial effects will affect interpersonal and intergroup stress and anxiety and alter behavior.
(4) Fear can come before direct impacts and threaten mental health.
(5) There can also be positive consequences if people take collective responsibility.

In answer to question 4:
(1) Adapting and coping is an ongoing and changing process.
(2) Adapting and coping involves a range of intrapsychic processes.
(3) Adapting and coping includes reactions to and preparations for chronic events and disasters through psychological processes such as (a) sense making, (b) causal and responsibility attributions, (c) appraisals of impacts and resources, and (d) possible coping responses, affective responses, and motivations for security, stability, coherence, and control.
(4) Adapting and coping processes are influenced by media depictions of climate change and social discourse that form social constructions, representations, amplifications and attenuations of the risks and impacts.
(5) Adapting and coping processes reflect and create intrapsychic responses (like denial, emotion management and problem solving).
(6) Adapting and coping cause individual and community behavioral responses based on individual and cultural variations.

click to enlarge

In answer to question 5: Structural and psychological barriers are because people –
(1) are unaware of the problem,
(2) are unsure of the facts,
(3) are unsure what to do,
(4) do not trust experts or believe their conclusions,
(5) think the problem is elsewhere,
(6) are fixed in their ways,
(7) believe that others should act,
(8) believe their actions will make no difference,
(9) believe their actions are unimportant compared to those of others,
(10 are engaged in token actions or actions they believe are helpful but objectively are not,
(11) give their time, effort, and resources to other worthy things draw,
(12) believe solutions outside of human control will solve the problem.

Structural barriers must be removed but that will be insufficient. Psychologists/social scientists need to bring down psychological barriers.

In answer to question 6: Psychology can
(1) improve understanding of the behaviors that drive climate change,
(2) build better behavioral models based on empirical analysis,
(3) provide deeper understanding of individual and household behavior,
(4) apply research methods to develop and improve interventions.

At the individual level, psychology already:
(1) broadens understanding of various personal and contextual factors
(2) broadens understanding of why people do and do not respond to types of interventions (like persuasive messages, information, economic incentives, and new technologies)

It can contribute more by helping to design more effective interventions. Psychology can also help at the organizational level. Psychology can also help design cultural and policy change.

The report recommends 8 principles for psychologists to best apply a psychological understanding of, and direct or make effective responses to, global climate change:

(1) Use the shared language/concepts of the climate research community and explain differences in psychology’s language.
(2) Connect to research and ideas from other (social, engineering, natural
science) fields.
(3) Describe psychological insights in terms of climate change analysis.
(4) Describe psychology in relation to the challenges of climate change and the response to it.
(5) Set priorities (issues and behaviors) according to climate change causes,
consequences, or responses.
(6) Be aware that psychological phenomena are context dependent and climate change is now part of the context.
(7) Be clear whether psychological principles and best practices were established in climate-relevant contexts.
(8) Be mindful. Social disparities, ethical questions and justice issues are now bound up with climate change.

click to enlarge

The report offers research recommendations. Some involve testing whether already derived understandings of behavior can be generalized to the subject of global climate change. Other of the research recommendations indicate where more understanding is needed.

The report offers policy recommendations (1) to help psychologists engage the issue as researchers, academics, practitioners, and students, (2) to help develop national and international collaborations, inside and outside psychology, and (3) to encourage APA to address its own greenhouse gas emissions and to be a role model.

click to enlarge

COMMENTARY
There are those in the psycho-emotional health community who orient the poles of their patient assessments around love at one end of the spectrum and fear at the other end. Change is terrifying to many. In that sense, this report is a dissection of fear.

A psychological approach to studying climate change advances society’s ability to address the problem and effects of global climate change by:
(1) providing theoretical and empirical bases for understanding human behavior at the individual level,
(2) providing an understanding of the interaction, along with other social sciences, of the importance of interrelations between the individual and others (neighborhoods, culture, economy) and predicting behaviors,
(3) providing research methods to uncover individual, interpersonal, and social forces that can change behavior,
(4) designing, implementing, and assessing interventions.

click to enlarge

The report’s 9 research recommendations suggest there is still much to be understood about why people react as they do and how reactions can be guided by better psychological insight. Psychology can:
(1) describe how people come to understand the risks of climate change and how their understanding affects their fears and responses;
(2) identify the connection between individual (beliefs, skills, needs) and context (structural, social, cultural) predictors of population growth and consumption patterns and habits;
(3) describe behaviors that link growth, consumption and climate change;
(4) identify psychosocial impacts of climate change like: (a)emotional, cognitive and behavioral responses to threats and impacts, (b) mental health outcomes, and (c) social and community impacts;
(5) explain how stress and coping responses moderate and mediate psychosocial impacts on individuals’ and groups’ responses and adaptations;
(6) identify structural, cultural, institutional, cognitive, and emotional barriers to change methods for obtaining breakthroughs;
(7) provide empirical models of behaviors that worsen climate change and design effective, culturally relevant ways to alter the behaviors;
(8) better understand public and organization behaviors that contribute to effective responses;
(9) design effective technologies and information systems by applying knowledge of cognition, communication, and human factors engineering.

Written by psychologists from 4 nations representative of a North American/ European ethos, the report emphasizes the importance of diversity and calls for a more global, cross-cultural psychology and a cross-disciplinary perspective. Worldview, cultural values and social identity, it says, very much influence attitudes about climate change and a complete understanding of reactions to it must account for the influence of media and information technologies across regions of the world such as Africa, Asia, the Andes, and Alaska, where impacts are and will be far more evident and significant. It points out that even like genders respond differently to climate change by race, ethnicity, age, disabilities, religion and other factors.

The report lists ethical considerations from the ethics code of the American Psychological Association standards of professional conduct and training that substantiate psychologists’ concern with climate change and responses to it.
(1) Ethical Principle A: Beneficence and Nonmaleficence, calling on psychologists to strive to benefit and do no harm to those with whom they work. Global climate change presents threats to individual and community.
(2) Ethical Principle B: Fidelity and Responsibility, calling on psychologists to be responsible to society and to their communities.
(3) Ethical Principle D: Fairness and justice, calling on psychologists (1) to address social justice issues like those that are likely to result from climate change impacts and (2) to recognize the limits to their professional competence.
(4) Ethical Principle E: Respect for People’s Rights and Dignity, calling on psychologists (1) to safeguard the rights and welfare of vulnerable persons or communities and (2) to attend to cultural and individual perspectives on human/environmental interactions in pursuit of basic needs and livelihood.

click to enlarge

With regard to the 8 principles for psychologists -

(1) Use the shared language/concepts of the climate research community and explain differences in psychology’s language:
(a) Aids communication across disciplines and differences.
(b) Requires care to avoid misuse, miscommunication and loss of meaning.

(2) Connect to research and ideas from other (social, engineering, natural
science) fields:
(a) Understanding greenhouse gas emissions (GhGs) and their impact on climate change requires understanding energy and energy efficiency, technology and equipment.
(b) Working with people on climate change requires some knowledge of other social sciences (sociology, political science, communications research, economics) as well as engineering, consumer product manufacturing and distribution, and other fields.
(c) Individual understanding comes from processing information from mass media, psychology, communications research, and other fields.

(3) Describe psychological insights in terms of climate change analysis:
(a) Understanding is improved with language that describes risk perception and
stress management.
(b) Understanding improves by introducing more levels of analysis.

(4) Describe psychology in relation to the challenges of climate change and the response to it.
(a) Psychological research uses statistics and behavioral terms.
(b) Climate change is interdisciplinary and uses terms of causation or strength of effects.
(c) The psychological variables for understanding human contributions to climate change are the combined effects of behaviors and the impact of behaviors on emissions.
(d) The psychological variables for understanding human consequences of climate change is the extent to which consequences can be linked to specific aspects of
climate change.
(e) The psychological variables for affecting climate responses are the amounts of GhGs or the impact of reductions from manipulating variables.

(5) Set priorities (issues and behaviors) according to climate change causes,
consequences, or responses:
(a) Lower-impact behaviors (according to scale of effects on GhGs - changing habits of personal travel is more significant than changing recycling habits) should be described in terms of the implications for climate change overall.
(b) Psychologists should emphasize responses of broader importance and greater consequences.
(c) Emotional or affective responses need to be explained outside their psychological significance, like how they might change behaviors or support policies.

(6) Be aware that psychological phenomena are context dependent and climate change is now part of the context:
(a) Psychological principles are often from narrow contexts (lab experiments, small-scale field experiments, surveys of narrow populations). Climate change is global.
(b) Questions about validity must be applied in other cultures or economies, in very different physical infrastructures or government regulatory frameworks, or in greatly differing technological contexts.
(c) Studies showing changes in commuting behavior and energy use among college students mean little in wider social contexts.
(d) Psychologists must constrain claims without valid evidence.

(7) Be clear whether psychological principles and best practices were set in climate-relevant contexts:
(a) The foot-in-the-door effect shows that inducing a small behavioral change can set in motion attitude or self-perception changes that create larger behavioral changes.
(b) The scale of global climate change could respond to such a foot-in-the-door effect (recycling leads to changes in travel mode choice) but it has not been tested empirically.
(c) Only studies that are explicit about the relationship between behavior and in climate-relevant contexts would be conclusive.

(8) Be mindful. Social disparities, ethical questions and justice issues are now bound up with climate change:
(a) Adaptation, and mitigation responses have different impacts on different populations.
(b) Different populations have different social constructions of climate change.
(c) Different cultural meanings and social justice concerns limit the relevance of research and communication.
(d) Attending to social and cultural differences through further research can point to new ways of thinking and addressing climate change.

click to enlarge
click to enlarge

QUOTES
- From the APA report: “Psychology has important contributions to make toward understanding, limiting, and coping with climate change. These contributions can be developed from knowledge and concepts in many subfields of psychology and enhanced by collaborations with psychologists worldwide and with a number of potential stakeholders, including community members, policymakers and colleagues from other fields, including the natural and social sciences…”
- From the APA report: “In the contexts of both climate change adaptation and mitigation, cultural contexts and differences may prove to be one of the most important considerations to be addressed in the human dimensions of global climate change. For example, cultural considerations will be critical in providing suitable interventions and resources for communities experiencing dramatic upheavals, such as population relocations, as a result of global climate change. Further, different cultural groups are likely to have strengths and insights that can potentially advance our understanding the human drivers of climate change, its impacts, and means of responding to it.”
- From the APA report: “As with other topics on which the APA has taken a stand (e.g., poverty, discrimination), climate change becomes a concern for psychologists because it is likely to have profound impacts on human well-being and because the anthropogenic causes of climate change mean that human behavioral change is required to address it. In addition, the magnitude and irrevocability of climate change demands our attention if we are to continue to study and promote healthy psychological functioning…The ethics code of the American Psychological Association sets the standard of professional conduct and training for psychologists and contains aspirational guidelines as well as enforceable standards (Barnett & Johnson, 2008). While the code serves “to guide and inspire psychologists toward the very highest ethical ideals of the profession” (American Psychological Association, 2002) there is no explicit reference in the ethics code to the natural environment or the influence of ecological and biosystemic variables on human health. The code’s general ethical principles, however, reveal potential guidelines for psychologists’ involvement in the topic of climate change.”

click to enlarge

- From the APA report: “In sum, a psychological perspective is crucial to understanding the probable effects of climate change, to reducing the human drivers of climate change, and to enabling effective social adaptation. By summarizing the relevant psychological research, we hope not only to enhance recognition of the important role of psychology by both psychologists and non-psychologists, but also to encourage psychologists to be more aware of the relevance of global climate change to our professional interests and enable them to make more of the contributions the discipline can offer.”
- Janet Swim, PhD and report task force chair, Pennsylvania State University: "What is unique about current global climate change is the role of human behavior…We must look at the reasons people are not acting in order to understand how to get people to act…Behavioral feedback links the cost of energy use more closely to behavior by showing the costs immediately or daily rather than in an electric bill that comes a month later…"